I originally bought the Cubes because they were small and quiet. The extra cost of 5 with flatscreens (they were <$1500 each for the bundle) was far, far less than the furniture I would have needed to handle towers and CRTs. The problem that most enterprise has is that the IT guys have their budgets and the furniture people have theirs, and if one f's up the other, so be it.
You know, this is a really excellent point that I hadn't thought of at all. For companies that have already spent money on monster desks to house monster Dells, it's a moot point, but if your office is relocating, expanding or just starting up, furniture cost is actually a big deal.
Of course, it's precisely this type of TCO thinking that Windows IT people DON'T do in the first place.
IFApple introduces a bMac, sales could be goosed pretty good if IBM began purchasing them as their office machines. Everybody wins, IBM sells 970's to themselves, Apple finds way into the office market, IBM employees enjoy the benefits of the best operating system available.
<cheap shot>
... and for that matter, since Motorola has a strict policy of not using their own CPUs ... ... maybe they'd look kindly on these 970-based boxen!
I think the problem was that Apple does not currently have enough room at the high end to sell a box at the low end. They have to make their margins on PMac sales to stay profitable. THis seems a given. A cheap bMac with any speed would eat PMac sales.
With more speed on the top end they could make a single processor low end box that might compare favorably to a P4. Right now could you really sell an 800 MHz G4 box for $600 against a 3 GHz wintel box?
I think the problem was that Apple does not currently have enough room at the high end to sell a box at the low end. They have to make their margins on PMac sales to stay profitable. THis seems a given. A cheap bMac with any speed would eat PMac sales.
With more speed on the top end they could make a single processor low end box that might compare favorably to a P4. Right now could you really sell an 800 MHz G4 box for $600 against a 3 GHz wintel box?
I agree. This may be the reason (I hope) that we haven't seen Apple make a "bMac" yet. They did it for schools with the eMac, and why not make a bMac for businesses. Yes, there were simply no room in the current line-up for a decently powerful bMac as it would probably cut directly into PM sales, unless of course they crippeled it severely in some way, and no computer in Apples current line-up is "crippeled" right now. Ok. I know about lacklustre processor performance, slow buses, MX-cards and so on. But if Apple buildt a 1 ghz G4 right now with decent features, they sure would kill PM 1 Ghz sales. So instead they went the middle way and lowered the powermac specs and price significantly. But right now the low-end powermac is in nowhere land. To low powered to be a decent workstation, and to expensive to be the "office-mac". So right now I would guess that Apple is not salling a lot of PM1ghz's.
But lets not dwell in the past. So, what now. Well. Apple will now suddenly have a very powerful processors drivning their high-end "workstation / enthusiast" powermac. Now, they finally have room for the bMac. A 1.42 or whatever bMac
would make a fairly decent office computer. Powerful enough for ordinary business applications, but not quite with the POWER of the POWERmac. High-end users will choose the PowerMac. Real enthusiast will probably choose the new Powermac, if they can afford it that is. Some will maybe go for the 970 iMac when it's introduced. And some consumers may find the bMac to be their dream come true, finally a cheap headless mac.
I for one will certainly get one of the new powermacs when they become available, but I think the bMac would be perfect as the second computer, or a new computer for my mom as she already has a decent FP display. And then it's the possibility of a 970 driven powerbook soon. I just one big right now.
Of course, it's precisely this type of TCO thinking that Windows IT people DON'T do in the first place.
Actually, I suspect that the TCO thinking is there at the IT level, but not at the CIO level. I glean this from having a CIO in the family that does think at that level and talking to a lot of IT guys about how idiotic it is that they are set up the way they are, but it's the only way to get it all to work out.
You need to consider how budgets are appropriated. Staff and operating are often different things and get measured in different ways. A unit that has a lot of operating money but has trouble with square footage or staffing might dump tons of money into solutions to minimize staff time. Another unit might have the reverse problem and throw lots of cheap labor at a problem rather than invest in technology. It's not uncommon to have these competing demands in the same company. IT may have heaps of staff (x IT staff/y staff in the company formulas aren't uncommon) but they live or die based on whether they can save $17 per desktop in operations, even though they've incurred $230 per desktop in staff support. It's not the IT guys problem - they're just living by the rules laid out. There are political pressures as well. Say an exec from Oracle is sitting on your board. There is a very slim chance that the company will be able to use any solution other than an Oracle one should a decision come up.
I deal with this stuff all the time. Piles of money sitting over here that we don't know how to use, and mountains of need over there that we can't fund because the money can't move from staff->equipment, etc. Ultimately you depend on having the execs, the COO, CFO, CIO all working together and taking the appropriate long views, rather than doing the usual turf war crap that some companies suffer under. I suspect it's why a company like Apple runs relatively well - Steve will kick your ass if you don't take the long view.
Apple, once they get everything in place, needs a poster child company. Pixar is an obvious choice, but they're foofy Hollywood and won't be taken seriously. They need to convert a wall street firm or someone like that and get the board of directors exchanges working in their favor. Shouldn't be too hard since most of them were NeXT shops previously.
Apple, once they get everything in place, needs a poster child company. Pixar is an obvious choice, but they're foofy Hollywood and won't be taken seriously. They need to convert a wall street firm or someone like that and get the board of directors exchanges working in their favor. Shouldn't be too hard since most of them were NeXT shops previously.
Great post.
Pixar does seem like the perfect testing ground for an all Mac shop. Steve would just love to crow about that! 970 Xserves doing the rendering, 970 Power Macs doing the creative work and 970 bMacs doing the office work. How could Wall St. dismiss that, with Pixar raking in dough and telling Disney to get lost?
In fact the more I think about it, if Apple we to fire any first shot in an Enterprise war it would have to be at Pixar. You get creative AND business credibility, and Steve doesn't have to convince anyone. He can just make it so. Then, when Apple goes to other, more traditional companies they can hold Pixar up as an example. If they can do it, you can too.
Apple, once they get everything in place, needs a poster child company. .... They need to convert a wall street firm or someone like that and get the board of directors exchanges working in their favor. Shouldn't be too hard since most of them were NeXT shops previously.
Apple, once they get everything in place, needs a poster child company. .... They need to convert a wall street firm or someone like that and get the board of directors exchanges working in their favor. Shouldn't be too hard since most of them were NeXT shops previously.
Comments
Originally posted by johnsonwax
I originally bought the Cubes because they were small and quiet. The extra cost of 5 with flatscreens (they were <$1500 each for the bundle) was far, far less than the furniture I would have needed to handle towers and CRTs. The problem that most enterprise has is that the IT guys have their budgets and the furniture people have theirs, and if one f's up the other, so be it.
You know, this is a really excellent point that I hadn't thought of at all. For companies that have already spent money on monster desks to house monster Dells, it's a moot point, but if your office is relocating, expanding or just starting up, furniture cost is actually a big deal.
Of course, it's precisely this type of TCO thinking that Windows IT people DON'T do in the first place.
Originally posted by rickag
IFApple introduces a bMac, sales could be goosed pretty good if IBM began purchasing them as their office machines. Everybody wins, IBM sells 970's to themselves, Apple finds way into the office market, IBM employees enjoy the benefits of the best operating system available.
<cheap shot>
... and for that matter, since Motorola has a strict policy of not using their own CPUs ...
</>
With more speed on the top end they could make a single processor low end box that might compare favorably to a P4. Right now could you really sell an 800 MHz G4 box for $600 against a 3 GHz wintel box?
Originally posted by wwwork
I think the problem was that Apple does not currently have enough room at the high end to sell a box at the low end. They have to make their margins on PMac sales to stay profitable. THis seems a given. A cheap bMac with any speed would eat PMac sales.
With more speed on the top end they could make a single processor low end box that might compare favorably to a P4. Right now could you really sell an 800 MHz G4 box for $600 against a 3 GHz wintel box?
I agree. This may be the reason (I hope) that we haven't seen Apple make a "bMac" yet. They did it for schools with the eMac, and why not make a bMac for businesses. Yes, there were simply no room in the current line-up for a decently powerful bMac as it would probably cut directly into PM sales, unless of course they crippeled it severely in some way, and no computer in Apples current line-up is "crippeled" right now. Ok. I know about lacklustre processor performance, slow buses, MX-cards and so on. But if Apple buildt a 1 ghz G4 right now with decent features, they sure would kill PM 1 Ghz sales. So instead they went the middle way and lowered the powermac specs and price significantly. But right now the low-end powermac is in nowhere land. To low powered to be a decent workstation, and to expensive to be the "office-mac". So right now I would guess that Apple is not salling a lot of PM1ghz's.
But lets not dwell in the past. So, what now. Well. Apple will now suddenly have a very powerful processors drivning their high-end "workstation / enthusiast" powermac. Now, they finally have room for the bMac. A 1.42 or whatever bMac
would make a fairly decent office computer. Powerful enough for ordinary business applications, but not quite with the POWER of the POWERmac. High-end users will choose the PowerMac. Real enthusiast will probably choose the new Powermac, if they can afford it that is. Some will maybe go for the 970 iMac when it's introduced. And some consumers may find the bMac to be their dream come true, finally a cheap headless mac.
I for one will certainly get one of the new powermacs when they become available, but I think the bMac would be perfect as the second computer, or a new computer for my mom as she already has a decent FP display. And then it's the possibility of a 970 driven powerbook soon. I just one big
To sum it up. new PM 970 => bMac
Originally posted by boy_analog
<cheap shot>
... and for that matter, since Motorola has a strict policy of not using their own CPUs ...
</>
Now that's funny!!
Originally posted by Ensign Pulver
Of course, it's precisely this type of TCO thinking that Windows IT people DON'T do in the first place.
Actually, I suspect that the TCO thinking is there at the IT level, but not at the CIO level. I glean this from having a CIO in the family that does think at that level and talking to a lot of IT guys about how idiotic it is that they are set up the way they are, but it's the only way to get it all to work out.
You need to consider how budgets are appropriated. Staff and operating are often different things and get measured in different ways. A unit that has a lot of operating money but has trouble with square footage or staffing might dump tons of money into solutions to minimize staff time. Another unit might have the reverse problem and throw lots of cheap labor at a problem rather than invest in technology. It's not uncommon to have these competing demands in the same company. IT may have heaps of staff (x IT staff/y staff in the company formulas aren't uncommon) but they live or die based on whether they can save $17 per desktop in operations, even though they've incurred $230 per desktop in staff support. It's not the IT guys problem - they're just living by the rules laid out. There are political pressures as well. Say an exec from Oracle is sitting on your board. There is a very slim chance that the company will be able to use any solution other than an Oracle one should a decision come up.
I deal with this stuff all the time. Piles of money sitting over here that we don't know how to use, and mountains of need over there that we can't fund because the money can't move from staff->equipment, etc. Ultimately you depend on having the execs, the COO, CFO, CIO all working together and taking the appropriate long views, rather than doing the usual turf war crap that some companies suffer under. I suspect it's why a company like Apple runs relatively well - Steve will kick your ass if you don't take the long view.
Apple, once they get everything in place, needs a poster child company. Pixar is an obvious choice, but they're foofy Hollywood and won't be taken seriously. They need to convert a wall street firm or someone like that and get the board of directors exchanges working in their favor. Shouldn't be too hard since most of them were NeXT shops previously.
Originally posted by johnsonwax
Apple, once they get everything in place, needs a poster child company. Pixar is an obvious choice, but they're foofy Hollywood and won't be taken seriously. They need to convert a wall street firm or someone like that and get the board of directors exchanges working in their favor. Shouldn't be too hard since most of them were NeXT shops previously.
Great post.
Pixar does seem like the perfect testing ground for an all Mac shop. Steve would just love to crow about that! 970 Xserves doing the rendering, 970 Power Macs doing the creative work and 970 bMacs doing the office work. How could Wall St. dismiss that, with Pixar raking in dough and telling Disney to get lost?
In fact the more I think about it, if Apple we to fire any first shot in an Enterprise war it would have to be at Pixar. You get creative AND business credibility, and Steve doesn't have to convince anyone. He can just make it so. Then, when Apple goes to other, more traditional companies they can hold Pixar up as an example. If they can do it, you can too.
Originally posted by johnsonwax
Apple, once they get everything in place, needs a poster child company. .... They need to convert a wall street firm or someone like that and get the board of directors exchanges working in their favor. Shouldn't be too hard since most of them were NeXT shops previously.
Like IBM
Originally posted by johnsonwax
Apple, once they get everything in place, needs a poster child company. .... They need to convert a wall street firm or someone like that and get the board of directors exchanges working in their favor. Shouldn't be too hard since most of them were NeXT shops previously.
Originally posted by rickag
Like IBM
Uh yeah, that would do the trick.